Into the Void
by Kenneth Whit3
Summary: When the Long Night of Solace was destroyed by the most advanced piece of equipment ever jury-rigged by man, it took one of the last Spartan-II's with it. On the other side of that void, Jorge-052 found an unfamiliar universe and a terrifying new enemy, but Commander Shepard found a powerful ally and a new hope for humanity.
1. Chapter 1

"Tell them to make it count."

Jorge watched as the lieutenant disappeared below the lip of the Covenant Corvette's hangar. Turning away, he slowly walked back to the slipspace bomb the crew of the Savannah had jury-rigged to destroy the Supercarrier orbiting Reach. The entire bay was quiet as a grave, which the Spartan-II found to be fitting for his last moments.

Calmly, knowing these steps would be his last, he walked to the panel crudely welded onto the Slipspace drive and began the activation procedure that Savannah's technicians had shown him. Jorge pressed two buttons and the cylindrical section of the drive began to spin up with a black-on-purple glow. Another button, and the energy rotated the rear section around its axis, projecting an enormous sphere of crackling purple that the Spartan recognized as the doorway into the other realm of Spacetime.

As the energy washed over Jorge, he felt a nudge at his feet. The supersoldier looked down to see his helmet, smudged and dirty. The orange-gold visor seemed to be looking up at him, begging him to be put back on. Jorge reached down and grabbed the helmet, pulling it back on his head. It felt good, and as he waited for the blackness to take him, the Spartan was at peace. Reach would be spared.

XXX

_Another day, another hell-hole alien planet_, thought Subject Zero.

The biotic looked up as another Geth dropship screamed through the air to dump more of the synthetics into the outpost at the top of the hill. Rounds pinged off the rocks covering her position as she glanced up at the fortified emplacement. _This sucks,_ she thought, _Fuck this shit_.

Half an hour ago, the squad had landed near the broken research facility, and Shepard had ordered her to keep a watch on their backs while he and Jacob paved the way through the complex. In the bowels of the half-destroyed mountain tunnels, they hadn't found a single soul to greet them, until the husks showed up. Dozens of the techno-zombies had pulled themselves out of every crevice imaginable to assault the squad. Jack's Eviscerator shotgun had become her most prized possession at that point.

After a long trek through the tunnels, Shepard had lead them out into the open sunlight to find a squad of Geth waiting for them. The synthetics had put down heavy cannons pointing away from the door, as though they were going to use the facility as a base. However, when the squad arrived, the guns quickly swiveled around to face the small door, and the three of them were forced to take cover.

The big cannons were similar to the type used by colossus bots, so they thankfully wouldn't destroy the granite that made up their cover, but if one of the squad was caught in the blast, they'd be fried almost instantly. Commander Shepard shouted over to her, she could barely hear over the rifle fire.

"WHAT?!" she yelled.

"I said, lay down a shockwave on that right emplacement!" Shepard repeated, pointing to a low wall that several geth were hiding behind. He quickly ducked back behind cover as a round hit the rock near his helmet.

Jack looked up at the wall. The heavy cannons were focused on the Commander, so she had a free moment to strike. Concentrating on the energy within her, Subject Zero clenched her fist three times in the motion she had trained herself to make when she wanted to unleash hell. The nerves in her spinal cord fired, hitting the trace elements of eezo in her body in a specific pattern.

When she was finished, the biotic energy flew out from her and created a series of detonations like a freight train towards the geth position. When the purple-blue energy connected, the synthetics were thrown to and fro away from their cover, and like champion skeet shooters, Shepard and Jacob knocked the majority of them out of the air before they ever hit the deck.

Ducking back behind her cover, Jack smiled and pumped her fist to herself. _Gravity's a bitch, _she thought, _and so am I._

XXX

Far above the fighting squad, the Normandy hung in low orbit of Circinius III, surveying the planet for any other threats. The Artificial Intelligence known as EDI filtered through the data available in an attempt to find the source of the geth dropships. The craft had managed to avoid the Normandy's sensors in a very familiar manner, making the AI very suspicious. She decided to alert Jeff "Joker" Moreau before continuing her analysis.

"Mr. Moreau, I'm detecting an anomaly in the Geth forces arrayed against Commander Shepard," said EDI.

"What kind of anomaly?" came the reply. EDI could "see" the pilot through her bridge cams, and his body language subtly changed to reflect the onrush of adrenaline as he queried for more information.

"The dropships are evading my sensor scans," she said flatly, "Their patterns seem to indicate a known form of stealth technology."

"'Known form?'" asked Joker, "Is there a way to counter it?"

"Data is incomplete," EDI replied, "but initial analysis suggests that their stealth technology mirrors that of the Normandy."

"So, 'no,'" Joker said, sighing to himself, "Anything else we can do?"

EDI took a millisecond to view the datafeeds again. There was a small spike in gamma rays just north of the destroyed research facility.

"There may be a hidden geth base 2 kilometers north of the Commander's current location," she told the pilot, "Shepard may wish to investigate, if only to stop the arrival of more reinforcements to his location."

Joker nodded before hitting the groundside comm channel, "Commander, we've got a problem."

"Can it wait?" came the Commander's reply, "We're kind of busy down here."

"EDI's been analyzing the dropships," said Joker, "and she thinks that they may be using a version of the Normandy's stealth technology."

"That's not something I want to hear," said the Commander, his voice booming in the cockpit.

"How do you think _I_ feel?" asked Joker, throwing his hands up, even though the commander couldn't see them, "Good news is that there may be a base just north of your location, if you can get to it, then you can kick the geth off the planet for your trouble."

"Much better, Shepard out," came the reply.

Joker sighed and rubbed his face for a moment before returning to the delicate task of piloting the Normandy. EDI spent a few runtimes observing him while she continued her analysis of the data from the planet. Everything seemed normal to her sensors, but Geth Dropships continued to deliver troops seemingly from nowhere, and, despite her guess from before, she was still unsure of exactly where they were coming from.

Suddenly, her sensors were overwhelmed with a massive energy spike, and it wasn't coming from the planet. She directed one of the ship's exterior cameras to look at a spot 15 kilometers away, and the AI witnessed something no being, organic or synthetic, had seen in this galaxy. It was a strange cyclone of purple-white light rimming what could easily have been mistaken for a black hole.

"Mr. Moreau, anomaly off the starboard bow!" she said through the cockpit comms, and she brought up the external camera's feed in her normal holotank. The AI watched as Joker did a doubletake at the screen before saying anything.

"What is _that?_" he asked, incredulous.

"Unknown," came the reply, "energy readings are off the scale."

"Activating stealth drive," Joker said as he pushed a few buttons on his console, "let's hope they won't still see us."

XXX

Jorge looked into the strange electroluminescence of Slipspace and saw an opening. It had only been fifteen minutes since he'd consigned himself to his fate aboard the Ardent Prayer, and the Spartan was confused as to the sudden exit from the field that had ripped the Long Night of Solace into thirds. The middle section of the large ship began to eject orange, crimson, and purple plasma as systems all over it exploded from containment losses; Jorge had watched the display of energy and color with a certain sense of relief that he wouldn't have to personally kill every covenant soldier aboard the wrecked ship.

Now he was wondering if his acceptance of his end had been too early, as the opening in slipspace grew larger, showing a predominantly green planet in their path. The Spartan contemplated his odds of survival in a covenant ship he knew nothing about, with mostly-fried engines and a very dead crew, versus a broken pelican with some amount of survival equipment in it.

Choosing familiar UNSC tech over the Covenant equivalent yet again, Jorge began scrambling past the still-active slipspace bomb into the cockpit of the pelican. The thruster gimbal had been shot to pieces only minutes ago, but he reckoned that if he could at least get the dropship out of the hangar, his chances of surviving a planetfall would go up significantly.

The pilot's seat was a tight fit for the big S-II, but he managed to spin up the engine just as the covenant corvette broke fully into realspace. Unlike most slipspace exits, this one struck him like the hard thump of entering atmosphere, and Jorge wondered just how close the ship was to the green planet as he put the pelican to full throttle.

Not very much happened, as the UNSC ship had taken much more damage than the Spartan had originally thought, but before he had time to react, Jorge was thrown into his seat as the corvette rotated in space and the hangar door pointed towards the planet below. The massive gravity of the world took hold of the pelican and pulled it out of the hangar, backwards.

In freefall, Jorge had nothing to do but hold on as the dropship spun about in the increasingly thickening atmosphere of the new world. Keeping his head cool, and using what motions he could with what remained of the Pelican's stabilization gear, Jorge managed to point the cockpit of the pelican on the horizon, and friction began to heat up the thick underside of the damaged craft.

He did what he could to stabilize the pelican, and it began a bizarre sort of glide towards the planet's surface, with its stubby wings providing only a fraction of the lift required to fly.

As the craft was buffeted around, and the altimeter showed no signs of slowing, the Spartan realized that despite his reluctance to leave behind his equipment, and his gun, the odds of surviving the fall from space were rapidly diminishing. After a moment to set a distress beacon and open the rear cargo door, Jorge lifted himself from his seat to enter the rear section of the pelican. Wind whistled past the open door and the slipspace bomb, pushing and pulling him around the cargo area. The S-II hobbled over to the emergency kits to see if there was something, anything, he could use to slow his fall to the planet below. The only thing in the craft was a standard AE-12 parachute, designed for a normal pilot.

Jorge quickly determined how much weight the parachute was designed for, versus how much he actually weighed. The results would not be pretty, but the Spartan hoped that his enhanced durability would mitigate the amount of damage he would undoubtedly receive.

The pack wouldn't fit over his shoulders, so Jorge did the next best thing, he grabbed as many of the straps as he could, and used the Mjolnir armor controls to lock his fist into place, just in case he was knocked unconscious. Parachute in hand, the Spartan edged his way past the now-dead slipspace bomb, and leapt from the craft.

He was easily 10 miles from the surface of the world, and the lack of anything around him meant that Jorge could turn and look back at the crashing ships. The Long Night of Solace was plummeting towards the unknown planet, its exposed decks catching fire in the atmosphere. The corvette, Ardent Prayer, was in considerably better shape, though it still fell like a rock towards the planet.

Jorge turned back towards the surface of the world and angled his body like an aerodynamic surface. With a little luck, he would be able to angle for a body of water or some trees to slow his fall after the parachute deployed, because while the pack was strong enough to not break, its surface area would not slow him enough to make a safe landing anywhere else.

XXX

"EDI, what exactly are we looking at?" asked Joker's voice through the comms. Commander Kirk Shepard paused in his assault on the geth fortification to look skyward. In the milky grey sky, he could just see a black spot of whirling energy near where his HUD told him the Normandy would be.

EDI's smooth voice continued their conversation, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was listening. "It looks like... a ship," she said, "unknown classification, and heavily damaged. Magnifying available image."

On his HUD, Shepard could see a small view of what they were looking at appear in an unobtrusive place. The "ship" was almost nothing like he'd ever seen. For a start, it was purple, and its flowing lines resembled something like a salarian craft, or perhaps the Destiny Ascension, but it seemed much bigger. Of course, to his navyman's eye it was also very broken, as though the front and rear sections had been sheared off, so there was no way to tell how big it really was.

Jacob pushed forward into the gun emplacement, biotically throwing two synthetics into the heavy walls before gunning down a third with his heavy pistol. He looked back at the Commander, then followed his gaze skyward, holding his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun. The ex-marine's jaw dropped to the ground as he saw the speck that was the strange ship begin to grow in the sky. At the rate it was approaching, Shepard could tell it was in total freefall. His HUD's computer calculated the trajectory as it fell, and a destination appeared on the ground just north of their location. The Commander grinned under his facemask.

"Looks like that crash is going to do our job for us," he said before spotting something else in the sky. Upon receiving input from his neural lace, his HUD magnified on a smaller flaming object beneath the massive ship. The Commander could barely make it out, but it looked very much like another, fully intact ship. This one was significantly smaller, and shaped like an eel, its atmospheric resistance pushing it in the opposite direction of the bigger ship.

After a few moments, Kirk's attention was torn away from the oddity as the destroyed larger craft finally impacted the surface of Circinius III, leaving behind a massive explosive cloud.

Joker's voice came through over the comms, "Energy readings normal Commander, whatever that thing was, it completely obliterated the Geth base."

"I copy, Joker, send the Kodiak for a evac and a sweep," Shepard replied before directing his squad, "Alright, everybody, mount up. It's time to clean up some Geth."

XXX

_Parachute deployed,_ thought Jorge as he hung upside down from the chute's straps, _Now what?_

The surface of the world was approaching fast, and Jorge was still looking for a decent landing zone. The forests directly below him looked enticing, but he could also see large patches of rock jutting up through the foliage. Hitting one of those would likely stop the S-II dead, which would hurt.

He looked further towards the crashsite of the Long Night of Solace, in between his location and the burning wreck, Jorge spotted a small lake. Even though he was a mile up, he decided that it would likely be his only option for survival, especially when the beacon in the pelican appeared on his HUD in roughly the same direction.

The lake's dark blue water suggested that it would be deep enough to catch him, and as the Spartan pulled on the straps to aim himself as best he could, he unlocked his armored gauntlet. The earlier precaution would cause him to overshoot if he held on, since the chute was not very good at steering, especially with the harness not properly attached. Looking down, Jorge calculated his current velocity based on the tiny shadow he could see of himself on the ground. He would have to let go at a precise moment to land in the center of the lake.

_3...2...1, _Jorge thought as he let go of the parachute. The nearly unbreakable kevlar weave of the cloth instantly fluttered and dropped with him as soon as there was no anchor weight, but the big Spartan-II's lack of air resistance meant he was rapidly pulling away from it.

As he sped towards the ground, Jorge was relieved to see that his calculations had been correct, and that he would hit the lake dead center. He set about increasing pressure of the Mjolnir armor's gel layer to maximum, and locking the liquid crystal layer as much as possible before he hit the surface of the water. He would sink like a stone, but the suit would keep him alive long enough to get to the edge of the lake.

The Spartan watched as the water rushed towards him, when a craft sped by at a velocity close to the speed of sound. Jorge didn't even feel a thump as his helmet smacked into the door of the shuttle, knocking him unconscious.

XXX

"What the _FUCK?!"_ shouted Jack as the Kodiak shuttle rocked from the side impact. The door next to her had bent inwards like an antique can of sardines, ruining the normally air-tight seals of the craft.

"Pilot, are you trying to kill us?" demanded Shepard into his comm as he banged on the door between the cockpit and the passenger area.

"Something hit us, sir!" said the pilot as the craft slowed, "I didn't see a thing on the scopes."

"Whatever it was, it's in the lake now," Jacob said as they kept flying. He had opened the other door. The wind whipped past him, threatening to tear him out despite his deathgrip on one of the shuttle's interior handles.

The Commander joined him at the door to look back. Ripples in the lake were spreading out from the center. Whatever had hit them must have been big to make that much of a splash.

"We'll be fine," came the pilot's voice over the comms, "I'll drop you off at the LZ and do a systems check. Then I'll radio the Normandy for a lower fly-by to pick us up."

"Wilco, pilot," replied Shepard, as he got back in his seat. The shuttle was almost at the crashsite, and as they put down, the Commander took a quick look at the damage to the opposite door. The impressions from the impact had a the vague shape of a head and shoulders, with a brown, red, and yellow smear of paint transfer. _That's odd, _Kirk Shepard thought as he looked at the bent metal, but he quickly removed the thoughts from his mind as he readied for the sweep of the impact site.

XXXXXXX

Thank you for starting with me on this new journey into both Mass Effect and Halo. As the narrative flows into being, I hope to capture as much of the wonder, action, adventure, comedy, drama, and wry self-depreciation of both of the series that have inspired me to write this story. I will answer any questions posed to me in a review or message as best I can on the next update's footnotes. I hope that you all enjoy reading this story as much as I have enjoyed writing it.


	2. Chapter 2

Jorge slowly dragged himself out of unconsciousness to find that he was at the bottom of the lake. The light from the local sun barely penetrated to this depth, and in the gloom of the deep water, the Spartan activated his helmet lights. The sudden change in light levels caused the local aquatic life to scatter, leaving only fine trails of disturbed silt in their wakes.

Standing up, Jorge did a quick self-assessment. His head and back felt as if he'd been hit by a warthog driving at full speed, and, if his chronometer was anything to go by, he had been out for several minutes. Despite the dull throbbing from the impact, the big Spartan was relieved for the short interval, as anything significantly more than an hour would have drained his air supply and brought him to an agonizing end.

100 meters deep, Jorge turned 'uphill' and began a slow stride toward the edge of the lake. The sediment beneath him grasped at his boots with every step, but the Spartan continued on towards the light of the surface.

As his head erupted from the water, Jorge surveyed his surroundings, looking for the beacon attached to the Pelican bomb. On his HUD, a waypoint directed him roughly towards the wreckage of the _Long Night of Solace_, and the Spartan set off towards the crash. He was going to need whatever he could salvage if he was going to survive until friendly forces found him.

Jorge crossed a solid 2 kilometers filled with distinctly alien vegetation before seeing any sign of the Pelican. It had crashed largely on its side, leaving a fairly deep crater in the center the bare patch of land he found it in. The craft was crumpled to just over 2/3 of its original size from the massive impact, the cockpit was a mess of shattered glass and bent metal, and the slipspace bomb was broken into easily a hundred pieces scattered around the wreck.

Cautiously, Jorge approached. Pelican dropships ran on a highly volatile fuel stored in wing-mounted tanks. While one of the stubby wings had obviously been torn away, the other was still there, and was likely draining itself onto the hot soil.

As he neared the dropship, it became clear to the Spartan that he had little time to recover any useful equipment. A small fire began to spring up near one of the dropship's rear engines, and it was slowly snaking towards the fuel-loaded wing. Wasting no time, Jorge used his immense strength to tear the remains of the Pelican's cargo door away and hurried towards the firewall separating him from the broken cockpit. In the equipment racks were his M247H Heavy Machine Gun and the Mjolnir Mark IV/LBE-A Fieldcase; the items were light and familiar in his hands, making him feel a little better about the situation.

Jorge took a gamble on his time to pull off an overhead panel in the Pelican's cargo bay. Behind it lay a beeping armored box about the size of a Combat LAN Radio. The S-II carefully disconnected the wires attaching it to the dropship and tucked it into a slot in his equipment pack. As he squeezed out of the cargo bay, Jorge looked towards the engine fire. The flames had nearly reached the wing of the craft.

The Spartan planted his feet and sprinted for the treeline; despite the weight he was carrying, his armored legs could carry him nearly 75kph at full tilt. Behind him, the Pelican detonated, causing his shields to flare from the massive heat and overpressure. Jorge stopped at the foot of a gnarled tree somewhat like an oak, and he surveyed the damage that the explosion had wrought. The ground around the craft was blackened from the intense heat, and the metal of the pelican had begun to bend into unrecognizable shapes. As he watched, the shredded wing crumpled and fell to the ground.

The wreck would likely attract sentients, if they existed on this planet, so Jorge was quick to dive deeper into the forest. Circling around behind the treeline to head towards the Long Night of Solace, the Spartan stopped when a high-pitched whine began to build in the distance. As he watched, crouching beneath the dense canopy, a ship streaked by towards the impact site. It was difficult to make out through the dense canopy, but Jorge recognized some of the lines of a Covenant Phantom dropship. He gritted his teeth. He could take being stranded, but if one Covie bastard had survived the wreck, he was ready to shove his armored boot down its throat.

Heavy gun in hand, Jorge set off at a trot towards the wreck.

XXX

Jacob Taylor had seen a lot of classified material in his time with both the Alliance and Cerberus, but this ship was definitely on the list of things he had never seen or heard of. The remains of the kilometers-long ship had completely obliterated the Geth base, and when the Kodiak had landed, the strike team quickly discovered that the interior of the ship was honeycombed with human-sized passages and bizarre ductwork.

"Taylor, you're on point," Commander Shepard said, pointing into a corridor that hadn't been completely smashed in. "Jack and I will follow with heavy support. Scatter guns out, everybody."

The sound of shotguns unfolding and clicking into position filled the air as Jacob pushed aside a curtain of hanging electrical conduits. Stepping into the ship, the Ex-Marine was rather put off to find that the floor, walls, and ceiling were colored in a number of different shades of purple. He _hated _purple.

Jack and the Commander followed close behind him, but the passage was blocked several meters in by a vaguely trapezoidal door. There was no obvious lock or handle, not even a holographic switch. Jacob searched for a button to push, but felt nothing. He turned back towards Shepard.

"Commander, I don't think we're getting-" he was cut off by a massive spray from a conduit in the wall. The heat coming off of the venting gases hurt like a sonofabitch, but as he ducked away, the door slackly opened.

"Well, nevermind," he said flatly as he slowly pushed the door completely into the bulkheads. Its multi-panel construction was remarkably unfamiliar, but it made some level of sense for the shape of the opening. He made a mental note about its construction before moving on.

Past the door, the corridor opened up into a massive room lined with flickering pink and purple lights. In the center stood a dais with what looked like a simple rhombus of blue-gray metal floating behind glass. Concentric circles of what could only be... pews... surrounded the raised platform.

The metal shard spun in place, glowing with a strange, inner light. As Jacob approached the center of the room, it seemed to follow his movements. The Ex-Marine was wary of an ambush, and repeatedly checked the high ceiling for a hidden enemy or watching auto-turret, but the room was disturbingly silent, and he felt himself being drawn to the shard. There was an odd sensation in his teeth, as though the object was emitting a mass effect field that rebounded off his implants.

"Whatever species this ship belongs to," said Jacob, "It looks like they... worship Prothean technology." As he took a step towards the center of the room, reaching out to touch the shard.

A hand grabbed Jacob from behind, pulling him away from the pedestal. He turned to find Shepard dragging him back.

"I've seen this show before," he said, pointing to his head, referencing his first encounter with a Prothean Beacon, "You don't want to touch that thing."

The metal object continued to emit its strange energy as Shepard directed the strike team away from the center of the "chapel" and into an adjacent corridor. Like before, the door refused to open, but this time, Jacob was prepared. Using his finely honed Biotic talents, the Cerberus Operative created a mass effect field at the bottom of the door. He lifted his hand in the motion he'd been trained to pull opponents up and out of cover. The door was slowly forced open, accompanied by the hiss of escaping gasses.

The strike team entered the new corridor; it was considerably longer than the passageway that had given them access to the ship, and after what felt to Jacob like a kilometer of no obstructions, a cavernous split in the ship's hull gave them a glimpse of the outside world. Smoke continued to rise from the burning sections of the ship, but through the haze, Jacob spied a familiar object.

"Commander, look," he said, pointing out of the massive gap in the wall.

Between the two curved sections of the alien ship, the distinctive insectoid curves of a low Geth structure poked up from the ground. The separation between the fore and aft halves of the ship had saved a small piece of the hidden installation.

"Good eyes, Jacob," replied Shepard before he leaned over to inspect the cavernous drop that lay before them, "Think we can get down there?"

Behind him, Jack crept forward to look over the edge. "Looks like _you_ can jump down a level at a time to get to the outer hull," she said with a smirk, "see you assholes at the bottom!"

The powerful biotic backed away to take a running start. She darted forward and propelled herself away from the purple bulkhead; at the apex of the jump, her tattooed body was surrounded by a blue glow, gently carrying her down to the waiting exterior of the ship.

XXX

Jorge reached the edge of the crater that contained the _Long Night of Solace_ and stopped running to survey the area. The ship had impacted largely on its port side, and was beginning to collapse from the massive damage that both the impact and the high heat of exploding plasma conduits had inflicted upon it. The Spartan frowned behind his visor. The ship would take days for him to clear by himself; even broken as it was, the CSO-class Supercarrier was still enormous.

Ultimately, it didn't matter, as the S-II was determined to secure the planet from Covenant intrusions so that he could get down to the business of survival on this alien world. He climbed over the low lip of the crater and began his approach to the burning hulk.

At the center of the wreck, roughly where the _Ardent Prayer_ had been when Jorge first activated the slipspace bomb, the Spartan noticed that the wreckage was not solely that of the _Long Night of Solace_. Here and there, pancaked underneath pieces of Covenant hull plating, strange, purple-grey panels and odd coils of cable were strewn about the crash site. Jorge began wondering if perhaps the planet wasn't entirely uninhabited.

He put his heavy machine gun down and pulled a panel off of the ground. It was like nothing he'd ever seen, Human or Covenant. The metal curved naturally, like a Covie panel, but it wasn't nearly as durable. The S-II could bend it with just his fingers, something normally impossible to accomplish, even with standard Titanium-A battleplate.

Jorge's analysis was cut short by the pulse and whine of what sounded very much like Plasma Rifle fire. Grabbing his weapon, the Spartan climbed over the wreckage towards the noise. As he crested a bent section of hull, the sight that greeted him was not anything that he'd been expecting.

A trio of humans had taken up defensive positions behind crumpled pieces of purple hull. Two wore very little in the way of armor, but all were armed with strange scatterguns that seemed to pulse rounds with a distinctly blue glow.

However, between Jorge and the humans was group of beings that seemed to defy classification. These aliens walked upright, with a gait vaguely reminiscent of a Covenant Elite, but they possessed heads that reminded the Spartan of bizarre flashlights. Their bodies were lean and sinewy, with perfectly aligned, bulging muscle fiber exposed to the air. Jorge realized that their guns were making the noise that had attracted him, but they shot obviously solid projectiles as well.

After a moment's confusion, the Spartan decided that if he was going to figure out where he was, he would probably get more answers from the humans. He leveled his gun and opened fire.

The M247H Heavy Machine Gun, heavily modified to be more portable and useful for the big S-II, fired 12.7mm slugs backed by 270 grains of Nitrocellulose to achieve an average muzzle velocity of over 1500 meters per second, something the crew of the Normandy, had they known, would have laughed at. Even the M-8 Avenger, standard alliance issue, fired rounds at easily 4 times that velocity. These bullets were big, and they were slow.

Unfortunately for the nearly 2 dozen Geth targets that Jorge was firing at, these 150g, hyperdense rounds were moving too slow for their finely tuned Kinetic Barriers to properly detect and deflect. As the first 12.7mm slug hit a platform, it passed through the shield almost completely unimpeded, punching a skull-sized hole out of the other side of the synthetic. It went down in a spray of white conductive fluid, and the others soon followed.

When Jorge let off the trigger a few seconds later, the field had been completely cleared of the strange beings.

In the distance, he saw the one armored human get up from behind cover. The figure waved and held his scattergun at a parade ready position, signalling that he was not hostile. Jorge was wary, and he approached cautiously, careful not to appear too threatening, but he kept the M247's barrel up all the same. As the Spartan came closer, he noticed that the man's armor was unlike anything he'd ever seen in the UNSC. Appearance-wise, it bore a vague similarity to his own Mjolnir armor, but it looked much lighter and was colored a dark grey with red and white stripes down the right arm. Jorge imagined that it likely marked him as a squad leader, but he had no clue as to what military or paramilitary organization, as the only other distinguishing characteristic was a red "N7" emblazoned on his right pectoral armor.

"I'm Commander Kirk Shepard of the Normandy SR-2," he said, "Who are you?"

XXX

The Commander regarded the massive humanoid that approached with a cautious confusion. It was as big as a Krogan, but it walked like a human, despite an unnaturally smooth gait. The gun it carried was built like an antique from before the Prothean discovery on Mars. Its bulky armor was a shade of brown with yellow and red caps on the upper body. Its faceplate was an opaque orange, and the commander wasn't sure what to make of the overall design. It seemed vaguely familiar, distinctly human, and yet, completely unknown.

The humanoid stood completely still after being questioned. It was unsettling that something this big seemed to not even move while it breathed. Shepard was reminded of the unnatural stillness of Geth platforms, and he tensed his body in preparation for a running firefight with the creature.

Moving slowly, the humanoid placed its gun on the ground and lifted its arms to its head. After a moment, the limbs returned with its helmet, revealing a male human face. Behind Shepard, Jacob took a step back while Jack tilted her head to the side in confusion.

"Nice to meet you, Commander Shepard, my name is Jorge," he said with a mild hungarian accent. The Commander scrutinized the face they'd been presented with. The man possessed a closely shaved scalp with a brown stubble-beard and groomed mustache. His heroically square jaw was complemented by a light scar that ran down the right side of his face from forehead to cheek. His brown eyes held no obvious ill intentions, but there was no reason to not be cautious around a man who looked like he could take a tank head-on and win.

"What _are _you?" asked Jack, in her usual, to-the-point manner.

"I'm not sure what you mean," replied Jorge as he looked down at the squad. The gigantic man remained completely still, but exuded a sense of unease as he waited for clarification.

Shepard was quick to take over the line of dialogue. He had a feeling they would need to be diplomatic. "What my squad member means is, "we've never seen a human like you,"" he said, "where do you come from?"

"My home planet is Reach, in the Epsilon Eridani system," he said, and his answer was met with confusion.

Jacob dutifully kept his mouth shut, but Jack blurted out, "Never heard of it," before the Commander could find a word to politely ask what he was talking about.

Jorge furrowed his brow and brought his hand up in a "hold on a second" gesture. Both Shepard and Jacob tensed for an attack, but the hand quickly reached around behind the armored man and pulled at what the Commander suddenly realized was a backpack. Jorge pulled the pack off and opened one of the slots. Inside was what looked like a digital datapad with the letters "UNSC" embossed on the back. He began tapping on the black screen and after a few moments, turned the datapad around to show a starchart. It was a picture of the Orion Spur with a location marker for Earth and another for Epsilon Eridani. While the system he had pointed to was known, Shepard knew for a fact that it hadn't been colonized, as it was too far from any Mass Relay to be practical.

"Hunh, interesting," said Commander Shepard. He realized instantly that this conversation would probably take a while. "Jorge, if it's alright, we'd like you to come aboard our ship. There's no telling how many Geth are left in-system."

"Geth?" replied the giant, "What's a Geth?"

"The robots you just busted with that antique of yours," said Jack as she pointed to Jorge's... turret. Shepard grimaced, wondering if the woman had a death wish, or if she was just itching for a fight.

"Interesting," said Jorge as he regarded his gun. He didn't say anything else, but the Commander had the sense that he was starting to believe that the three of them were crazy.

"The area's unsecured," said Shepard; he put his hand to his ear to signal the Kodiak pilot that they were ready for pick up. As the Commander spoke, Jorge began looking around warily, as if he detected a threat. It was disturbing to imagine that there was something that scared the armor-clad giant, and Shepard took that into account with his orders.

"Enroute, ETA sixty seconds," said the shuttle pilot on the other end of the channel, "Normandy's been flagged for a low orbit pick up."

"Roger," replied Shepard before turning to the rest of the group to give orders, "Ex-fil's on its way; Jack, Jacob, secure the LZ."

Jacob responded like the seasoned veteran he was and moved out to cover potential entry points into the area. The wreckage of the alien ship had pulverized the ground and the Geth base that had stood here, but its strange construction meant that the hull pieces that surrounded them were still mostly intact.

Jack, unfamiliar with military protocol, found a piece of crumpled bulkhead to hide behind and pointed her Eviscerator at the nearest hole she could see. The powerful shotgun's blasts would easily deter any synthetic that happened upon her, but Jorge's obvious wariness suggested that something more dangerous was on the field.

The next minute crawled by as the hum of the shuttle's drives increased in volume until it reached a screeching pitch just above their heads. As it descended, retro-rockets fired for stabilization and the undamaged door opened to let its passengers embark. Jack was first on board, and she kept her scattergun pointed out of the bay, covering Jacob as he ran for the door. The Ex-Marine lifted himself onto the shuttle and waved for Jorge to approach, but the big man refused to follow.

During the wait for the shuttle, he'd replaced his helmet, and he clearly knew something that Shepard didn't. The giant picked up his machine gun and said, "I've got hostile movement, 10 meters and closing."

Rather than wonder how he'd detected an enemy that Shepard himself couldn't see, the Commander unlimbered his M-100 grenade launcher to cover the shuttle. A dull pounding reached Shepard's ears over the thrum of the Kodiak's drives. Before he could pinpoint the noise, the sound turned into a loud series of cracks, followed by a low roar.

From inside the hull of the alien ship, a strange, hulking creature burst forth between himself and Jorge. It kicked up a cloud of ash that obscured the Commander's vision, but he could hear the heavy footsteps of the massive creature as it approached his position.

Jack and Jacob, their vision apparently unencumbered, audibly gasped over the comms. As Shepard scrambled away from the cloud of ash, he got his first glimpse of the hulking monster. It stood nearly 3 meters tall, and its "skin" was a writhing mass of what looked like orange earthworms. The creature was armored nearly from head to toe in a blue-green plate metal unlike anything he'd ever seen. Meter-long spines protruded from its back and its limbs wielded a massive grey shield and what looked like some kind of neon green artillery piece.

Jorge shouted from behind the creature, "Covenant Hunter! Get down!" and the low, chattering-rumble of his massive gun filled the air. The creature staggered and orange globs of its flesh hit the ground when the rounds impacted. Over his initial shock, Shepard fired his grenade launcher at the creature. The explosive rounds caused it to reel backwards, but it seemed undamaged. A loud roar emanated from the creature's worm-like flesh as it raised its massive shield in a crushing blow.

The Commander was nearly pulverized by the beast, but his specialized biotic vanguard training allowed him to hastily dodge away using a biotic charge. Like a ship using the enormous mass relays that made spacefaring so easy, Shepard was translocated ten feet to the right nearly instantaneously. The "Hunter," seemingly unfazed by the escape of one of its attackers, turned and smashed its shield into the ground at Jorge. The big man dodged quicker than Shepard had seen any human move, and countered with a headbutt against the creature's own armored head.

The Hunter was stunned for an instant, and Jorge pressed the attack. He jammed the barrel of his gun into the creature's unprotected stomach and opened fire, point blank. More orange fluids and chunks spewed out of the back of the creature, severely wounding it. The Hunter raised its now very brightly glowing green cannon as a final, desperate attempt to shove its attacker off, but the giant man responded by smacking the gun down and punching it in the face.

Shepard saw flesh tear in the creature's neck as it took the blow. The armor of its head seemed to flop listlessly to the side, and the creature took a staggered step back, its cannon dimming. The Commander marveled at the Hunter's ability to keep moving, even after taking so much damage, but as Jorge pushed it off his gun, he realized that the creature was not a single entity at all. The earthworm-like flesh was, in fact, a massive collection of actual worms that slithered away from the carcass of the blue-grey armor.

The dust settled as the Commander approached the fallen enemy. Jorge, despite the mess that he'd endured, looked perfectly clean as he hefted the heavy turret to scan the surrounding area. "There's always two," he said.

Shepard put his hand on the big man's arm. "Then let's go," he said, "We'll strike from orbit in the Normandy and completely obliterate this wreck."

Jorge looked as if he was going to protest, but reluctantly the big man boarded the Kodiak shuttle ahead of Shepard. As the Commander entered the craft, he spotted the delta wing profile of the Normandy SR-2 in the distance. It would be good to return to the familiar again.

XXX

The interior of the shuttle was a tad too cramped for Jorge's taste. The seats were too small and the ceiling too low for him to sit or stand comfortably, so the big Spartan-II decided to crouch over his heavy machine gun and wait for the thing to land in the cargo hold of what the others had called "The Normandy." A bump followed by a sudden stillness told Jorge that they had docked safely, and as the door opened, he was the first to get out.

Hefting the gun, the Spartan took a steady step out onto the clean deck of the cargo hold. He had to admit that he hadn't expecting a space so small, or so tidy. The area was filled with some kind of pumping equipment permanently affixed to the deck in neat rows, and the upper sections of the bay contained several racks for deployable vehicles. An odd looking craft sat in one. Its catamaran hull was flanked by two large turbines, rather like a Hornet VTOL, and it sported a large cannon on top of its fuselage. Overall the craft seemed very light for its size.

_A hovertank?_ thought Jorge, _Interesting. Seems too large for those turbines._ He was still taking in the details when he heard a shout from the woman named Jack.

"Fuck, dude," she said when he turned to look. Her eyes darted back and forth between him and the damaged door on the shuttle, "We hit _you."_

The Spartan removed his helmet and stepped slowly around the craft to get a better look; sure enough, there was a Jorge-sized dent in the metal, complete with impressions of his armor and yellow-brown paint transfer.

"Explains why I don't remember hitting the bottom of the lake," he said, deadpan.

Jacob regarded Jorge with a raised eyebrow complementing his expression of outright incredulity. The dark-skinned man then shook his head, muttering "...weirdest shit I've seen today," before turning to join Commander Shepard at what was obviously an elevator at the far end of the hold.

"You can take a hell of a beating," said the tattooed woman. She folded her arms with a look of nonchalance; Jorge noticed something different in her subtle body language, but his mind quickly refocused on the more pressing matter of figuring out how to get back into UNSC space. Up until this point, Jorge had been willing to entertain the notion that the planet had been home to a potential "lost colony" that likely came into existence sometime before the Interplanetary War, a conflict that erased an enormous amount of data on post-digital space exploration. However, the nature of the Normandy was giving him sufficient reason to doubt that idea.

The Spartan joined Shepard and Jacob in the elevator. Jack remained in the cargo hold, which struck Jorge as odd as she didn't seem like a technical expert, but it wasn't high on his list of things to inquire about.

The cramped space of the lift made the silence all the more uncomfortable, and despite his conditioned resistance to claustrophobia, Jorge was relieved when the door opened with a "bing." Through the opening, the Spartan could see a massive holotank containing an apparently real-time schematic of the Normandy, stations all around it were manned by various personnel clad in black and white uniforms. The pavillion gave way to a hallway towards what Jorge guessed was the cockpit of the ship. His enhanced eyes could see a lone chair with a blue hologram next to it. In front of all of this, however, stood a raven-haired woman in a white, skin-tight suit that left next to nothing to the imagination. Jorge never could understand Civvie clothing.

The woman's arms were folded in irritation as she addressed the Commander. "Shepard, the Illusive Man would like to speak with you, and your... guest," she said as her eyes rested on Jorge. Her body language suggested that she was willing to "escort" both of them if either he or Shepard refused to comply, something that amused the big Spartan, but he was willing to cooperate regardless.

The slender woman lead the way to the left, past the crew, who stared at Jorge. After 20 years in the field, it wasn't anything new to see an ordinary soldier look up at him in awe, and the Spartan gave them only cursory glances. _Human enough, I suppose,_ he thought.

The four of them proceeded through a door into an armory filled with more of the strange weapons that Shepard's squad had been wielding. There were collections of scatterguns, rifles, pistols, and what appeared to be missile launchers on racks throughout the room. Jacob unlimbered his weapons, stopped at a terminal, and saluted the Commander before turning towards the monitor. Shepard placed his shotgun on the table. Jorge hadn't noticed before, but the weapon had been folded into a compact rectangle before Shepard put it down. When it was unclipped from the Commander's armor, it extended into the shape Jorge recognized from the planet. It wasn't quite the strangest thing the Spartan had seen yet, but it was close.

The woman pointed at Jorge's portable turret. "You'll need to disarm yourself before we can speak with the Illusive Man," she said. The Spartan lifted the gun, considering his options. Shepard tilted his head, indicating his preference with his eyes. After a moment's thought, he nodded. "Alright," he said, "Your ship, your rules." He put the heavy machine gun down with a resounding *thud.*

The woman turned expertly on her heel and lead Jorge and Shepard through another set of doors, revealing a small room with a rounded rectangular table in the center.

"EDI, open a communications line with the Illusive Man," she said, and as a soft, female voice replied "Of course, Officer Lawson," the table descended into the floor and a hologrid appeared in its place. Shepard strode into the grid with "Officer Lawson," and motioned for Jorge to join them. The Spartan stepped onto the table, wondering if perhaps he was about to be teleported, when the world inside the hologrid turned black. In front of them, inside the projected world of the hologram, sat a well-dressed man with graying hair, smoking a cigarette. The view from this man's room was the writhing surface of an orange star. Jorge was beginning to suspect that he was very far from UNSC space when the man in the chair spoke.

"Shepard," he said, "Good work destroying the Geth base. While I'm sure that the synthetics have probably already cracked the secret of the Normandy's stealth technology, the destruction of that facility should push back their production by several months, but perhaps I should be thanking our new... guest for that."

The "Illusive Man" took a long drag on the cigarette, and the Commander spoke up.

"An alien ship of some kind flattened the base," he said, "We found Jorge in the wreckage. He took down half a platoon of geth single handed."

The seated man's expression morphed into one of mild approval as he flicked some ashes off the end of his cigarette. However, the woman's face turned sour. Between them, Shepard kept speaking. As he finished off the description of the events down on the planet, Lawson interrupted.

"This man, Jorge, is incredibly dangerous," she said, curling one fist at her side, "a complete unknown. I want him off the ship."

The Commander frowned, but the Illusive Man merely waved. The woman turned to face him.

"Miranda," he said, smiling, "your concern for security is noted, but you have to remember exactly what task I've asked you all to undertake. Perhaps we could use an ally as powerful as Jorge."

Miranda continued frowning, but didn't argue further. Clearly, she felt her boss was mistaken, though for whatever reason, the Spartan had no idea.

"Come closer, Jorge," the Illusive Man said, "I want to get a better look at you."

The Spartan took a step forward, past Miranda Lawson and Commander Shepard. It was difficult to tell through the hologrid, but the man seemed to sit with an aura of power, as though he knew his place was at the top. It reminded him of Dr. Halsey, though her attitude came more from sheer intelligence than wealth or political power. Jorge spoke politely.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Illusive Man," he said with an air of formality. He felt a tad awkward saying the words -Spartan training hadn't come with etiquette classes- but the man in the chair nodded all the same. "Of course," he replied, "The Commander speaks highly of you, but I've never seen a man of your stature, Jorge, where are you from? Are there more soldiers like you?"

The Spartan recalled his earlier conversation with the Commander's squad, and started off with the basics.

"I was born on the planet Reach, in the system Epsilon Eridani, part of UNSC territory," he said, and again, he was met with strange stares.

"Epsilon Eridani," replied the Illusive Man, "I don't think that system's been colonized,"

It was Jorge's turn to stare. "What?" he said after a few moments.

The Illusive Man paused for a moment to take another puff. "EDI, bring up a hologram of Human Territory in the conference room," he said, "Highlight major human worlds."

The female voice spoke again from inside the Normandy, "Yes, Illusive Man." An image of the Milky Way appeared in view of the hologrid, just to the left of the Illusive Man's Chair. As the Spartan watched, the image telescoped onto the Orion spur and rough shapes grew from a point that he assumed was Sol, encompassing nearly a third of the galaxy. The one centered on Earth was colored blue, and labeled "Alliance Territory." Another was colored orange and labeled, "Terminus Colonies." The third, and final color on the map was spread out across several points near the outer-most borders of the Terminus Colonies. Each was labeled "Contested."

Jorge stared in confusion. UNSC territory was roughly the size of "Alliance Space," but he had no idea what "Terminus" was.

"Tell us where you come from," said the suited man as the hologram reprojected itself onto the surface of the grid. Miranda and Shepard looked on eagerly. The Spartan put his finger in the holographic image a "mere" ten lightyears from Sol. "Reach is here," he said as he circled his finger roughly around the blue shape, "and this is UNSC territory."

His declaration was met with no small amount of surprise and confusion.

"That's... That's impossible," said Miranda.

* * *

Okay everybody, Chapter 2 is wrapped.

Looks like monthly updates will be the standard here, as I have a tendency to get bogged down by other projects and this wonderful thing I have to legally refer to as my day job.

I look forward to reading all your comments and hope that you enjoy this next step in the story.


	3. Chapter 3

"Well, that was a thing," said Joker as he killed the feed from the conference room.

In the hour that they'd spent cruising towards the Circinius Relay, Joker had been eavesdropping on what later human historians would describe as the second most important extraterrestrial discovery, ever. The first being the Prothean ruin on Mars, and the third being the First Contact War.

"Indeed, Mr Moreau," replied EDI, "The possibility that parallel universes exist at all has been the cause of speculation for physicists over the past 250 years, and the Normandy is now host to not only several libraries of potential proof, but also a _resident_ of another plane of human existence. It is... quite a "thing.""

"So, what was all that about humanity fighting a war for survival?" the pilot asked, "You think the Reapers exist there, too?"

EDI did not respond for a few moments, and Joker wondered just how much of her processing power had been dedicated to answering the question.

"The data on the tablet computer Jorge gave us access to states that Humanity in their universe has been fighting a hegemony of alien races bent on the religious domination of the galaxy," She said, "Reapers, Mass Relays, Element Zero, and even the species of non-humans _we_ are familiar with do not exist there."

"That sounds... I- I can't even imagine that," said Joker. He was so used to everything the galaxy had thrown at them so far, even Shepard coming back from the dead didn't seem all that strange when a starship could be catapulted halfway across the galaxy and hit a target no bigger than Australia, but the idea of being taken away from that and thrown into the world Jorge was from... He couldn't come close to comprehending what the big guy was feeling.

The comm panel in front of the pilot beeped, it was Shepard.

"We're going to bring Jorge down to medbay, see if there's anything we can learn about how different he may be from the rest of us," the Commander said. In moments like these, Shepard had turned to him as a familiar face; the Cerberus personnel were largely held at arms length, despite the dangerous and stressful nature of their assignment.

"Sounds like a good idea Commander," replied Joker.

A thought struck him, and it seemed prudent to mention it while he had the Commander's ear, "EDI mentioned that the alien races from Jorge's universe were set on killing all humans. If he's a veteran soldier, how's he going to react when he sees someone like Mordin or Garrus?"

The line was silent for a few moments.

"Shepard?" Joker inquired.

"We're going to have to be gentle with this one," came the reply.

* * *

As Jorge was escorted down to the Normandy's medical bay, a heavy surge of emotions began to flood into him. Anger, fear, loneliness, depression, resentment. They swirled and twisted around inside him like a Maelstrom of boiling hot currents as he turned the situation over in his head again and again.

_The UNSC: gone, Reach: gone, my family: never existed,_ he thought, _I was grateful to be alive before, and now... What is there left to take from me?_

The Spartan's thoughts were interrupted by their arrival in the medical wing. Miranda Lawson had departed company to return to her quarters, and Shepard eagerly explained to the attending physician Jorge's "condition" as a human from an alternate reality. Doctor Chakwas, as she was introduced, took a moment to study Jorge in his entirety.

"Can you remove your armor?" she asked, "It will make examination easier."

The Spartan removed his helmet again and set it down on a nearby examination bed. "This is about all I can remove on my own," he said as he remembered his extended family of Spartans and was forced to quietly stuff a sudden wash of grief into the back of his mind.

The Doctor contemplated the structure of his armor for a moment before directing him to sit on one of the medical beds so that he could be scanned by her "Omni-tool," whatever that was. He politely declined. The big man had destroyed enough furniture in his life to know that the examination table would not hold his weight. Standing there, he felt that he was being regarded by Doctor Chakwas as one might consider a stray dog. Caring, but curious as to exactly where the guest had been, and not sure whether to trust it.

The rather matronly woman nodded to Commander Shepard before activating an orange holographic device on her arm. As she waved it over the Spartan, Jorge found himself intrigued by the device, the burst of curiosity temporarily overriding his grief-ridden introspection. It was shaped a bit like an old-fashioned clothespin, with a curved shield over the arm and a multi-faceted cylinder on the hand. The Omni tool pulsed randomly for a few moments before the Doctor looked at a readout on her arm and frowned.

"I'm not getting any readings," she said, "it's almost as though a field is repulsing scans."

Jorge stared in confusion for a moment before remembering precisely _why_ he could be difficult to scan. "That's my fault. Sorry," he said as he fiddled with his helmet and adjusted his armor's shield controls, "Should be fine now."

The doctor performed the scan again; this time, when she looked at the readouts, shock was plainly evident on her face. "Commander, look at this," she said, and she waved her glowing hand over a holotank. A three-dimensional sculpture of Jorge's body appeared, hovering above the surface. The image zoomed in and layers of the hologram peeled away, revealing the full extent of his Spartan Augmentations. As he looked at the readout, the Spartan initially bristled. The data was classified, and civilians should definitely _not _be seeing this. Upon further reflection, he felt an altogether unfamiliar emotion take hold: apathy.

It didn't matter what they saw. There was no UNSC here, and no way to get back home that he knew of. At the end of the day, there was no point in defending the data, especially if it meant starting a fight with the first group of humans he'd met.

Shepard leaned in for a closer look at the hologram, and Doctor Chakwas explained the different layers as they peeled away.

"His musculature is incredibly dense all across the skeletal system. I'd say he's at least 7 times stronger than the average Alliance Marine," she said, "Neuro-chemical receptors look... altered, as though they've been combined with synthetic materials for better conduction. His reaction time must be in the _microseconds_."

Kirk Shepard raised an eyebrow, as though he believed she was making half of it up. "Talk about upgrades," he said, and he pointed at a dark section of the hologram, "what's this here? Are these his bones?"

"Yes, Commander," replied the Doctor, "The deep scan revealed a precise mix of titanium and ceramic materials, like the plates on his armor. If I had to guess, I'd say that this was to counteract the stresses Jorge's enhanced muscles would put on his skeletal system. Am I correct?"

Jorge looked up. He'd been lost in thought until that moment, but he guessed the nature of the question.

"I don't know all the details of the augmentations," he said, "Muscle, bone, nervous systems, growth hormones. It happened years ago."

"This is amazing. He's just as biologically human as you or me, but this level of augmentation is completely beyond anything we've ever managed," said Doctor Chakwas as she quietly turned back to the image. Commander Shepard left her side to address the Spartan.

"Jorge, I can't imagine what you're going through," he said, "Everything you've left behind, all of this new information to take in. Hell, _I_ was clinically dead for two years, and this is completely out of my realm of experience."

Jorge furrowed his brow for a moment at the absurdity of the statement. "It's... it's fine, Commander," he said, "I went into that portal expecting to be dead by now anyway."

"Then maybe there's some way we can help you get adjusted to this... brave new world you're stuck in," Shepard replied before resetting his posture, "With everything that's happened, I know it seems like a lot to ask now, but I'm putting together a team, and we're going to be taking a dangerous enemy head on.

"An alien race called the Collectors have been abducting entire human colonies. We were tasked to stop them, but everything we've learned so far is telling me that we might not make it back," Shepard looked pointedly at Jorge's Machine Gun, "I want the biggest guns, and the best soldiers on my side. I've only spent ten minutes with you out there, but I know you've got what it takes. Will you join us?"

Jorge regarded the Commander, in this strange ship, in his strange armor, as he made his speech. The soldier clearly believed in his cause, and unlike the Illusive Man, Shepard lead from the front. His stance spoke of the responsibility of command and the experience of going through absolute hell. There was a fire in his eyes that couldn't be dimmed by impossible odds or an overwhelming threat. He knew he had to win every time. The Spartan respected that. In a both painful and comforting way, it reminded him of John-117.

"I've been at war for nearly my entire life. You could say that it's all I know how to do," said Jorge contemplatively, as though he was speaking to himself more than the Commander, "The UNSC may not exist here, but I'll keep fighting, for Earth and her colonies."

* * *

Garrus Vakarian looked up from the maintenance terminal as Kirk's voice popped up over the intercom.

"Garrus," he said, "would you mind coming over to med bay for me? I... need your help with something."

"On my way Commander," the turian said as he rolled his neck, stretching the mesh of his jaw immobilizer. Calibrating the Normandy's main cannons was a tedious task, but it required his full concentration. Considering that Garrus wasn't in the mood to think about anything more complicated, he was grateful for the activity.

The Turian turned and walked out of the gunner's station towards the Medical Bay. Dr. Chakwas' station on the ship shared a deck with his chosen venue, so it was a quick trip past the mess area. Garrus strode through the open door of med bay to find the Commander conversing with an absolute giant of a human. He was at least a head and a half taller than Shepard and covered in a strange brown and yellow armor. By his side, on the medical examination table, sat a matching helmet and an old-fashioned gun that could only be described as a piece of light artillery. The man looked up as he entered, and Garrus was immediately filled with adrenaline.

Over the years, between his required military service on Palaven, his tenure with C-Sec, the innumerable firefights as part of Shepard's original squad, and his time on Omega as "Archangel," Garrus had developed a sixth sense for combat; every instinct in his body was screaming that the behemoth at the other end of the room was incredibly dangerous. Only the Commander's calm demeanor and Doctor Chakwas' curious, but relaxed expression told him otherwise.

The big man, however, immediately hefted the gun. Garrus noted that, despite its size, he wielded it as easily as one might carry a toy. The turian was about to duck out of the door, but Shepard quickly interposed himself between them.

"Jorge," he said, addressing the giant, "this is my friend, Garrus Vakarian, a turian of Palaven."

Jorge eyed him warily, as though he was mentally trying to determine the best way to kill a turian with the minimum amount of effort, but he soon put the cannon down. Shepard's shoulders relaxed, a sign Garrus recognized that he was relieved, and the Commander addressed him.

"Garrus," he said, "this is Jorge, a-" he glanced at the big man before continuing, mouthing unfamiliar words, "'Spartan Supersoldier of the UNSC Navy.'"

"Commander," Garrus began, "Is... What's going on?"

"What did he say?" Jorge interrupted, an edge in his voice, and he rested his hand on the massive gun again, "I don't speak Sangheili."

"Sang-hell-what?" asked Shepard as he turned towards the krogan-sized human. He lowered his arms, confused.

EDI's voice came in over the ship's intercom. "Commander," she said, "Sangheili is the name of one of the Covenant species; Jorge has not been equipped with a translation earpiece, and I believe that this attempt to introduce him to the Non-Terran species of our galaxy will proceed much more smoothly if he is issued one."

The Commander blinked twice before placing his hand on his forehead and furrowing his brow. "Good one, Kirk," he muttered to himself before reaching into his ear and drawing out an earbud. "Here," he said, giving the device to Jorge, "Now let's try this again. Jorge, Garrus. Garrus, Jorge."

"Commander," replied Garrus, who wasn't quite sure what to make of the situation, "Do you want me to come back another time, or..?"

He slowly stopped speaking as Jorge stomped towards him. Up close, the height and sheer bulk of the supersoldier was overwhelming. The man moved too smoothly for a human, and he seemed big enough that he could put a krogan in a headlock until it cried "uncle."

"So you're from _this_ universe?" he asked, and Garrus slowly nodded. He refused to back down, even if the odds were well against him, but the nature of the question was confusing at best. "Interesting," said Jorge.

"And where are you from?" asked Garrus as he looked into the big human's eyes.

"Reach, stronghold of the UNSC," came the reply, "a governing body of Earth that does not technically exist here."

"What, like Terra Firma?" asked Garrus, deadpan. He still had no idea what was going on, and there was a thought in the back of his head that the big human was about to squish him.

At this point, Commander Shepard interrupted the odd standoff by, once again, interposing himself between them. Garrus moved back with the Commander's arm on his chest, but the Spartan seemed implacable. "Jorge, Garrus here is a member of one of the many species that make up Citadel space. We live in a peaceful harmony with them, and he has been asked, like you, to accompany us on our mission to stop the Collectors," he said before turning to address his old friend.

"Garrus, Jorge is from an... alternate version of the galaxy, one where the Reapers don't exist, and Humanity slowly expanded for 500 years and had no contact with any alien species until a collection of races called the... "Covenant" decided to wipe them out over a 25 year war," he said. His jaw worked oddly as he formed the words. The idea seemed far fetched, apparently even to Shepard, but the Normandy's original crew had discovered _The Reapers_, so it couldn't be too far out of the question. "Thus far, we don't know if there's a way to get him back to his universe, but he's agreed to help us stop the Collectors in the meantime."

"That is the strangest thing I've ever heard," said Garrus, still staring down the threatening human.

"Tell me about it," said Jorge. He shifted onto his back foot, and most of the edge had left his voice, but he added, "Where I come from, the aliens shoot first and then dance on our corpses."

Garrus looked from the Commander to Jorge and back again. After a very pregnant pause, the turian clicked his mandibles in the equivalent of a human shrug before saying, "Right, mmmhmm, I'm going to head back to the main guns. I have some calibrations to finish."

He slowly backed out of the med bay, noting that Dr. Chakwas had paid no attention to the exchange, her expression one of deep contemplation. Jorge eyed him warily as he left, but Garrus maintained the held gaze as he cleared the door. He walked back to his station in the forward cannon control room, and as his thoughts swirled around in his head past the slowly draining adrenaline from his system, it quickly dawned on him that Commander Shepard had found what could only be described as a _killing machine_ from another universe. He performed the turian equivalent of a smirk as he thought _The Collectors are in for something new._

* * *

Commander Shepard took a deep breath as Jorge watched Garrus stride past the windows of med bay. The Spartan seemed to have adapted well enough to everything else about their universe: the Geth, the Systems Alliance, Mass Effect Technology, but Shepard had been on edge for the duration of their "encounter" with Garrus. While the humans he was familiar with held a certain distrust of turians in particular because of the First Contact War, Jorge and everyone he knew had been in a the middle of an attempted extermination of humanity via every alien they'd come into contact with. It was no surprise that he was ready to react violently, and it seemed like a case of sheer luck that he had been able to talk the soldier down, as he didn't think he'd be able to stop Jorge otherwise.

"That went well," said Kirk, and silence filled the air.

Jorge's grim expression changed to one of exhaustion. "Commander, this has been... a lot for me to take in," he said. There was something in his eyes that spoke of a more personal loss than "merely" the separation from his own universe, but Shepard declined to comment on it right then. "Is there a place for me to get some privacy?"

"There is a room available on the engineering level Commander," said EDI, her modulated voice had started to grow on him, but hearing her interrupt a random conversation was still a tad startling, "To the right of the elevator. There should be enough room for Jorge to sleep, so long as we can find a sufficiently strong bed for him."

"Sounds good EDI, thank you," Shepard replied before reaching up to tap Jorge on the shoulder, "If the Doctor is ready to let you go, I'll take you to your room."

Doctor Chakwas barely looked up from her omnitool as she absentmindedly said, "Everything's fine Commander."

Shepard lead the way into the elevator, and he thought about how much his world had changed over the past three years, and that there was probably much more to come.

* * *

Alright everybody, enjoy. 


End file.
